Denver to host ’08 Democrats’ summit

The Democratic National Committee on Thursday announced it would hold its 2008 convention in Denver to showcase the party’s expansion into the once reliably Republican terrain of the Rocky Mountain West.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean said that symbolism pushed Denver’s bid ahead of its competition, perennial convention candidate New York.

“It’s fitting that the next president of the United States will be nominated in Denver,” Dean said in a conference call. “If we win the West, we will win the presidency.”

Democrats won Colorado’s governorship in November and, for the first time in four decades, control all branches of the state’s government. Democrats also picked up a U.S. Senate seat in Montana in November. Most of the eight Mountain states have Democratic governors.

“You have the combination of Republicans with a socially conservative face in the last decade alienating some Republican voters in a libertarian region, plus the demographics of voters moving into the region who are not necessarily conservative Republicans,” said political demographer Rhodes Cook.

Denver initially bid for the 2000 convention, which went to Los Angeles.

Last year it tried again, arguing that political shifts in the West merited a convention in the Rockies.

It found a receptive audience in Dean, a former Vermont governor and 2004 presidential candidate who took over the national party vowing to expand the Democrats’ base from the Northeast and Pacific coast. During his conference call Thursday, Dean noted that every Democratic convention since 1988 had been in reliably Democratic cities.

Until the fall, Denver lacked a unionized hotel that could host the convention. That problem was solved when the Hyatt next to the Colorado Convention Center unionized under pressure from local leaders.

Another concern had been whether Denver had the corporate base to raise an estimated $80 million to fund the convention. Colorado officials said they were reaching out to governors and businesses in other states to help generate the dollars needed, arguing the convention would be a net gain for the entire West.

“This is not just about one city,” said Denver Mayor John W. Hickenlooper, a Democrat, “but about all the transformations that have been taking place in the region in the last decade.”

nicholas.riccardi@

latimes.com

Times staff writer Mark Z. Barabak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.